EMI makes back-catalog deal with eMusic

Online music service eMusic, at long last, has deals of some sort with all of the big four major music publishers: the company announced today that it has signed a deal with EMI that brings more than 15,000 albums from EMI artists like Radiohead, Roxy Music, Beastie Boys, and LCD Soundsystem to eMusic.

“We are thrilled to further expand our music catalog and give members the ability to discover and own more music through our service,” said eMusic president and CEO Adam Klein, in a statement. “We recognize that we need to expand upon the music that we offer to better cater to the varied tastes of our membership base. In adding more music to our catalog, we will always honor our independent roots.”

Jazz enthusiasts may be especially intrigued by eMusic’s deal with EMI: it includes the vaunted Blue Note Records catalog.

The deal echoes terms eMusic has struck with other major labels: although eMusic won’t initially have access to EMI’s latest releases, albums 12 months and older will be available through eMusic, and eMusic’s well-regarded editorial deal has been mining through the catalog to create music guides and highlight significant releases that might otherwise pass by even major music fans. EMI releases will also presumably fall into the tiered pricing structure that eMusic introduced late last year to accomodate major labels: where the independent tracks that make up the backbone of eMusic’s service can go for as little as $0.49 apiece, major music label tracks are typically priced from $0.69 to $0.89 each.

eMusic says it is working on new music discovery features as well as the ability for members to “access all of their music no matter where they are”—which sounds suspiciously like a cloud-based music locker. eMusic says these features will come in the “next quarters” and will launch with an invitation-only beta.